History of Venice 1550-1630

Venice has been very interesting so far.  Seeing the sites has been incredible.  When we visited Doges Palace, we discussed the fact that Venice was a major trade hub.  This adds an incredibly important detail to the article “Wage-Earners and the Venetian Economy, 1550-1630” by Brian Pullman.  This article discussed the history of Venice from 1550-1630, specifically focusing on the plagues and famines that happened during that time and explaining the changes in the wages because of them.

In the second and third quarters of the 16th century, Venice’s population was rapidly growing.   Being the major trade hub, there were many immigrants to Venice.  This growth was suddenly stopped when the bubonic plague hit Venice in the 1570’s, taking about 50,000 or three tenths of the population.  This plague prevented something called a Malthusian crisis.  A Malthusian crisis is a situation in which a population grows faster than the agriculture production. This forces a decline in the population.  In addition to this plague, there were also 22 other plagues and typhoid between 1361 and 1528, and there were many famines in the time leading up to this.  Typically, one would assume that this would cause an increase in the wages of workers to attract more as many would need to be replaced.

This economic assumption would be partially true.  The difficulty was the fact that many of those who knew people with the plague were to be isolated in their homes for a couple of months sometimes.   This meant that there was near unemployment at some times.  I am going to talk about the effects on two types of wages in particular.  First, the Master’s wage rate.  A master was a skilled laborer who had reached the highest position as a builder.  A Lavoranti was one level under the Master.   One would think that their wages increased and decreased at the same rate overtime, that would be what we would generally see in wages today, but that wasn’t the case.  Instead, the Masters’ wage rate increased to attract more skilled workers, simultaneously, the barriers to entry were decreased granting more people the ability to reach the level of Master.  Then the the wage rate growth slowed for Masters and increased more for Lavorantes.  This went back and forth based on demand for the workers.

One of the reasons the plague spread so rapidly was the growth of the population which meant people were close to their neighbors and the amount of people trading in the area, causing the plague to spread quickly.

Here is a picture of Venice in 1650.  In it you can get an idea of the density of the people at the time:

https://goo.gl/images/axnfgo


Here are a couple of pictures of Venice today (PC: Riley Reed and Julia Grosvenor)

 

Our guide at the Arsenal mentioned the celebration of Carnival in Venice.  She mentioned that the ones like this pictured below were used by doctors during the plague.  The nose of the mask was filled with herbs as a filter and to help the doctors deal with the scent of the patients with the plague, though this one is decorated for Carnival, a typical doctor would have a bone white colored plain mask.

https://goo.gl/images/uRkbDY